


let us sing of the world's end

by eraserheadbaby



Category: Nier Gestalt | Nier
Genre: F/F, Introspection, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:00:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23517304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eraserheadbaby/pseuds/eraserheadbaby
Summary: She really should have thanked her creators when she still could.
Relationships: Devola/Popola (Nier)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	let us sing of the world's end

You know how, after you've listened to a song one too many times, it's fated to become tiresome, even when it's your absolute favorite in the world? Popola is now finding the exceptions to this rule. For she has heard these notes, these tellings of ancient encrypted history, many more times than she can count, but the infinity only makes the music stream more mellow inside her ears.

The fabric of the seat feels softer than usual under Popola's skin, and as she dives further into the cushioned warmth, she thinks that maybe music, even in the form of unchanging song, is meant to be blended with other elements until it homogenizes into a new life, a new set of emotions and memories. Devola must think the same ; she doesn't know it yet, but her deciding to welcome something as new and rare as her early return from work with their old song points her to the same theorem.

Devola's fingers curl and uncurl with the delicacy of a dancing ribbon as they cross the strings of her trusty instrument. Her voice comes as sweetly, not unlike the tweet of a bird. Popola smiles knowingly to herself - how would her sister react to such a saccharine comparison?

She sinks even deeper into the soft material under her, feels its ripples gently rub her skin, and the small dimensions of the seat confining her, then the walls that for a moment seem to move like they want to close in on her. Then outside, the starving green of the village outside their cottage. 

The boundaries of her life are ever present, inescapable. They're outside too, most of all outside, and Popola knows there's no reason for this melancholy hovering over her. In the village they live in, beauty peeks from a lot of corners; flowers still grow despite the infertility of the lands, people still sing and love despite the plasticity of their hearts.

It is all static. Like the miniaturized pretty landscape trapped in a snow globe – you can look at it from any angle you want, but that will never change neither its inertia nor its falseness.

Devola playing their song for her – each time it happens, it's another wave that refuses to be washed away by the ocean, as if denying their identical nature. The same two notes will never coincide, the same two tones in her voices will never overlap. Instead, they will all spread out, and then, one by one, they will wrap around Popola and convince her that time flows, that a future is to be had, even in this doomed space-time.

She really should have thanked her creators when she still could.

Of course, she knows “thank you” is mostly kept for things explicitly given to you. And her human creators only ever gave her the duty of surveillance. Surveillance – staying still and examining the world as it tumbles down piece by piece, as sickness and death brood over it every day, as the Replicants still break through the pain, like it has any meaning, like they'll ever obtain a true life on their own.

Examining everything under the magnifying glass, examining everything like it's a fly caught in glue.

Popola doesn't know if the humans that created her gave her the ability to feel disdain on purpose, but it's telling that the feeling comes only when she thinks of them.

But she should still thank them, for all the things they gave her without ever intending to, or maybe with the most malevolent intent possible. For the genuine, tangible smile that greets her after endless hours in the library, putting on the farce of preserving a place faker and weaker than a castle in the sand. For the body heat that keeps her warm when she can only shiver through the night, body heat that, though artificial, has no difference from the brightest sun or the thickest wool. 

How cruel, she thinks, how selfish, to taste so much bitterness in your life and still want to share it with someone. But if she hides that selfishness inside her, then Devola does too, and if Devola's selfish, it can't be something that bad. 

Popola faintly taps her fingers on the cushion, a makeshift metronome for the beat, and joins Devola in her song, kind of like they used to do in the tavern. Her eyes shut tight, and she lets her sister's song guide her onto the next day, onto the next lifetime.

Because if Devola is here, the next day and the next lifetime will surely come too.

**Author's Note:**

> *replaces my brain w song_of_the_ancients_fate.mp3*


End file.
